The devils half mile, p.14
The Devil's Half Mile, page 14
He refilled his glass. “The next day, we moved on the town. We were lucky, because they were marching out to find us, after what Justy did. Their blood was up, and they weren’t paying attention. We caught the bastards in an ambush and cut them to pieces. Killed their officers and set the rest of them running. The bloody cowards. They quit Gorey, the whole garrison, and hightailed it to Arklow.”
He nodded at Justy. “It was a good day.”
Justy said nothing. He looked up at the window. The spider had finished and was sitting in the corner of the web. It might be a long wait in a room as clean as this, Justy thought.
“Anyway,” Lars went on. “After that, we used Justy to reconnoiter all our targets. Which meant he had to use that knife of his more than a few times. Until we all got snared up in that mess in Ovidstown.”
“What happened there?” Kerry asked.
“We lost,” Lars said flatly. “The bloody English whacked us and we had to run for it. We ended up in the bloody Bog of Allen of all places, me with a hole in my leg the size of your fist.”
He smiled at Kerry. “I was sure I was going to die in that damned place, but your man here found a way out, through the marsh. He carried me the whole way. He had to put me down now and again, to deal with the odd sentry, and then there was that officer.”
He nodded at Justy. “If you hadn’t held it together there, I’d be dead, or in an English bastille.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.” Lars turned to Kerry. “We ran into a redcoat rag carrier. An ensign. We surprised him. He was out hunting or some fool thing. Anyway, he’d already fired his barking iron at a rabbit, so we thought we had him. But then he produces another one. He points it at us, and I freeze solid, but Justy runs at him like a demon, drags him off his horse and pinks him.” He picked up his glass of liquor and threw it back. He coughed. “I won’t forget that in a hurry.”
Kerry stared. “You’re mad.”
Justy made a face. “Not at all. I could see the fool had only half-cocked his weapon.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I knew that when he pulled the trigger, nothing would happen. Then all I had to do was tip him off his prancer.”
“And knap his boots,” Lars said. “Don’t forget that.”
Kerry grinned. “I was wondering where those fancy beaters came from.”
Justy frowned. “You think I couldn’t afford to buy them myself?”
“Affording’s one thing. Willing to pay up’s another.”
“What are you saying? That I’m scaly?”
“Well, maybe not scaly. Thrifty, let’s say.” She winked at Lars.
He laughed. “She knows you well, a chara.”
“She knows nothing.”
“I know where you learned to steal, Justy Flanagan,” she snapped. “I watched you, remember?”
“A thief?” Lars gasped in mock horror. “Justice! You never said you had such a checkered past.”
“Lifting a few apples from a farmer’s stall hardly makes me a thief.” Justy glanced at Kerry. “Not compared to some.”
Kerry folded her arms. “You still winning at cards, Justy?”
“What if I am? I win fair and square.”
She smirked. “Aye. Keep telling yourself that.”
Her words hung in the silence of the snug. Lars smiled to himself and poured another slug of the aquavit into his glass.
Justy sighed. “All right. Now we’ve all confessed our wicked pasts, maybe we can press on with the matter at hand.”
“Which is?” Lars asked.
Justy picked up his glass and drank. It was like being punched in the face and the stomach at the same time. He coughed and wiped his eyes. “Jarlath Cantillon.”
Lars refilled his glass. “Who’s he?”
“A lawyer. An old friend of my father. I need to find him. We were together this morning, but I got in a bit of a tilt and he ran off.”
Kerry frowned. “He didn’t go back to his libben?”
“No. His housekeeper says he usually takes the pledge, but every now and then things get the better of him and he goes carousing for a day or so.”
Lars shrugged. “So let him away and suck the monkey. He’ll be back to his house when he’s had enough, and no harm done, except to his purse.”
“No! I need to speak to him now!”
Kerry and Lars looked at him. He held up his hands. “Sorry. It’s just he’s been lying to me. About my father. I heard some things today.…”
He let his voice trail off.
Lars squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll find your man for you. What’s he look like?”
“He’s a wee gundiguts of a fella,” Kerry said. “Curly red hair. About fifty years old. Likes to wear flash waistcoats.”
“Aye, but not today,” Justy said. “Today he’s wearing green.”
Lars chuckled. “Hoping to blend in with the locals, is it?”
“I don’t think he planned it.”
“Aye, well, never worry. We’ll find him. I’ll put some of the lads on it. There’s a few fellas from New York in the crew, and they all owe me a favor or two. Let’s all meet back here after sundown. Drunk or sober, we’ll have your lawyer friend in the bag by then.”
TWENTY-ONE
Justy pushed open the door to the Counting House and waited until his eyes adjusted to the light. The tavern was one long, narrow room, with a counter along one side and a line of benches and tables that ran the length of the opposite wall. Light came from candles burning in sconces on the whitewashed walls. Regimental pennants and old weapons hung from the beams of an unusually high ceiling that was darkened with smoke from the drinkers’ pipes and cigars. There was a large brass spittoon, halfway down the counter, in the middle of the floor.
It was still mid-afternoon, and the tavern had just one patron, a small, thin-haired man, dressed in a dark blue military coat that had been patched and stitched many times. He raised his glass to Justy, grinned a set of toothless gums, then spat with pinpoint accuracy into the spittoon.
A tall man stood behind the counter. A mismatched pair of cavalry officers’ swords hung on the wall behind him, their handles downwards, their curved blades crossed close to the tips, just above the man’s head. The man looked to be in his early fifties. Candlelight gleamed on a long, brutal scar that wound its way from his right eye and around the back of his shaven skull.
“What’ll it be?” the barman asked.
“Calibogus.”
“Flicker or bumper?”
“Flicker.”
Justy settled himself on a stool.
The barman poured a small measure of rum into a half-pint glass, then filled the glass up with a light spruce beer from a black bottle.
Justy sipped the fragrant mixture. It had a warm, sweet taste. “It’s good.”
“Aye, well, this be a soldiers’ stop. Can’t get away with flogging balderdash or pug cider. Either it’s quality tipple or it’s stingo, or I’m out of business.”
There was a door to the back of the premises at the end of the counter. It swung open a little, and a small fair-haired boy in a pale green waistcoat and black breeches poked his head through. “I’ve finished the mugs.”
“Good lad,” the barman said. “Away down to Mrs. Rose and get the towels.”
The boy disappeared. Justy took another sip. “I was supposed to meet a fella here yesterday. Name of Drummond. He’s a warden up at the jail.”
The barman’s face was expressionless. “Was a warden, you mean.”
“You heard the news, then.”
“The cossacks were in here. Said he’d been milled, up by the Collect. They wanted to know when he was last in.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Why should I tell you?”
The challenge hung between them.
Justy’s eyes flicked to the scar that bisected the man’s eyebrow. “Toasting iron?”
The man’s eyes were cold. “What makes you think so?”
“I’ve seen a few sword cuts. You were lucky.”
“Lucky I’ve got a hard head.”
Justy nodded at the crossed swords on the wall. “Was one of those two the doer?”
The barman gave a faint smile. “Aye. Redcoat bastard cut me deep. I thought the top of my head was off. Then one of the lads put a ball through his swede and I filched his poker. Just as well, with the rest of the lobsters scuttling through the gate like rats. Hundreds of ’em. And not inclined to stop their slaughter, even though we’d surrendered.”
He looked up as two men came into the tavern. They were both tall and lean, about forty, with hard faces and watchful eyes. One of the men held up two fingers and the barman nodded. The men removed their hats and walked quietly to a corner.
The barman took two tall bottles from a shelf under the counter and two mugs from the wall and carried them over.
“Bleedin’ shoulder-clappers,” the toothless drinker said. “This used to be a place you could escape from the cossacks. Not anymore.”
“Shut up, Sharky.” The barman took up his place behind the bar again.
Justy nodded at the swords. “What about the other poker there? Where’d you get that one?”
“My brother-in-law.”
Something clicked in Justy’s head. He remembered his conversation with Drummond. “I heard Fort Griswold was a hard day.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Only what Drummond told me. He told me he stole an officer’s sword and shab’d off to New London to warn his sweetheart. Your sister, right?”
The barman was about to reply when the back door swung open again, and the small fair-haired boy’s face appeared. “I got half the towels, Da. Mrs. Rose says she won’t have the rest until tomorrow. They’re still drying.”
The barman nodded. “All right then. Sit and do your letters until supper.”
The boy disappeared, and the man turned his attention back to Justy. He dropped his voice. “Callum told me he was going to meet some young lawyer here. I suppose that’d be you.”
“It would.”
“He said he was going to sell you some papers.”
Justy nodded. “I still want the papers. I was hoping you’d tell me where to find his wife. I’d like to speak to her about it.”
“Sure. Go up onto the Broad Way and turn left into town. You’ll find her right at the northwest corner of Lombard Street and Thames Street.”
Justy was halfway off his stool before he realized he’d just been given directions to the Trinity Church cemetery. For a moment he was about to snap at the man. Then he remembered Drummond’s wife was his sister. “When did she pass?”
“Last September. Yellow fever.”
Justy remembered Drummond’s slow, sad smile and felt his own chest tighten. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The man gave him a careful look. “I do believe you are.”
“My own mother was taken by the fever. In ’83.”
The barman nodded sadly. It was a common enough tale in New York. “Sorry I can’t help you.”
“Will you tell me where Mr. Drummond lived, at least?”
“You know the big building up at Fisher’s and First Street? He has a room in there. Not that it’ll do you any good. The crushers’ll have stripped the place to its beams and boards by now.”
* * *
Justy stood outside the tavern, blinking in the late afternoon sun. It was that time of the day when all the smells of the city seem to congeal in the air, ripened all day by the heat. His throat felt as though he had swallowed a teaspoon of sand. A horse clopped past, its tail high in the air, and he blinked as the hot smell of fresh manure clogged his nose.
The barman was right; Turner’s men would have torn Drummond’s place apart by now. His landlord would have plundered his possessions for anything worth selling. The rest would already have been thrown into the street, to be picked over by all comers. Justy’s only hope was that no one would have seen any worth in a bunch of old papers.
As he passed the alley that ran down the side of the Counting House, he heard a whistle. He stopped and peered into the gloom. The small fair-haired boy was halfway down the alley, beckoning.
The alley appeared to double as the tavern’s latrine. Justy followed the boy, breathing through his mouth. They made a left turn around the back of the tavern, and Justy found himself face-to-face with the barman. He had a worn leather infantryman’s satchel slung over one shoulder. “Sorry to drag you down here. I just don’t want the crushers knowing my business.”
“Those two men who came in?”
“Nah. They’re old campaigners. Mates of mine. It’s Sharky Ward, that scrawny little weasel. He’s a mounter. Thinks we don’t know he tells anything he hears to the law, but everyone’s wise to him.”
He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Good lad. In you go and study your letters. Don’t shirk. I’ll not be long.”
Justy waited until the boy had gone. He glanced at the satchel on the barman’s shoulder. “Are those the papers?”
“Aye. Callum left them with me after Rosalie passed and he sold their house.” The man clamped his arm around the bag. “He said you’d pay.”
“And I will. A quarter eagle, we said.”
“That’s not what Callum said. He said five quarters.”
Justy shook his head. “The deal was an eagle for him to answer any questions I had and a quarter for the papers. Now that he’s dead…”
The man’s face darkened. Justy took a step back, opening the distance between them. He could see the man deciding what to do. He could use the bag as a weapon, it was heavy enough, but swing wrong and Justy might just grab it and run.
The barman’s shoulders sagged. “A quarter eagle?”
“That was the deal.”
“Damn it.” He thought for a moment. Then he scowled. “Go on, then.”
He swung the satchel halfheartedly. It scraped against the wall of the tavern, and Justy had to bend forward to catch it before it landed in the muck. He slung the bag over his shoulder. “You said Drummond sold his house?”
The barman sighed. “Aye.”
“To provide for the boy?”
Something changed in the man’s face. His eyes softened. “Aye. He’s mine, but my wife died a year after he was born. Callum and Rosalie looked after him much of the time. A tavern’s no place for a lad that age. But when Rosalie passed…” He shrugged.
“You’ve got a tutor for him?”
“Aye. And we’re saving to get him schooled properly.” He looked suddenly lost. “Or I am, I suppose.”
Justy unbuttoned his waistcoat and fumbled in his money belt. He held out the coins. They gleamed dully in the dim light of the alley. “Here. Five quarters.”
The barman looked at the coins. He frowned. “That’s not the deal, you said.”
“Here’s a new deal. A quarter for the papers, an eagle to keep your eyes open on my account. I’ll be back.”
The barman gave him a long look. Then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He tucked the coins into his waistcoat pocket. “So where did you get your licks?”
“What do you mean?”
The barman smiled. “Your phiz may not be marked like mine, but don’t think I can’t see your scars. I can see you know what it’s like to stand in the line while the bees buzz about your head and men drop around you. It’s in your eyes.”
Justy nodded. He knew exactly what the man meant. “Ireland. The Rebellion. More than a year gone now.”
The barman nodded slowly. “We heard the news. A bad time.”
“A small affair compared to what went on here.”
The barman rubbed the scar above his brow. His eyes glittered. “The size of the stage don’t mean much to them has to play on it.”
“You’re right about that.”
TWENTY-TWO
The papers were a random collection of poems, cuttings, letters, lists, and sketches of plans and ideas. Some dated back more than a decade, others just a year. Drummond had clearly grabbed a stack of whatever was at hand and jammed them into a box and hurried away.
Justy sat in the snug of the Norwegian tavern and sorted the papers into two piles. On his left, a large heap of papers that meant nothing to him. On his right, a shorter stack of Duer’s correspondence.
The sound of men talking quietly in the bar area of the tavern was reduced to a low hum by the stout pinewood walls. There were three candles set in a sconce high on the wall, and the small space was filled with the honey-like smell of colza wax. The flames flickered slightly whenever Justy turned a page or placed a paper on one of the piles.
The more recent of Duer’s letters showed that while he had fallen hard, he had maintained contact with some of the most important men in the country, right up until his death. Thomas Jefferson and William Bradford, the former Attorney General, were among his correspondents, and his relationship with Alexander Hamilton appeared to be warm, despite Duer’s misdeeds. But no one, it was clear, was prepared to offer him anything much more substantial than moral support.
It was in a dozen letters from Duer’s principal securities salesman, Isaac Whippo, that Justy found what he was looking for. The letters were dated between the summer of 1791, before the Panic, and March of 1793, after Duer had gone to jail. The later correspondence was focused on Duer’s legal position. It detailed lists of creditors and debtors and descriptions of securities of various kinds.
The earlier letters were what Justy wanted. Whippo’s poor command of the written word made the letters hard to read, but they clearly showed he had spent several months in the Carolinas, purchasing goods that were due to be shipped back to New York by sea. He considered a land journey too risky, as the roads through Virginia and New Jersey were plagued by highwaymen, whereas a sea voyage that kept close to the coastline was less likely to be intercepted by pirates. It wasn’t clear what the goods were, but they were clearly high-priced items. There was to be a single voyage, with all the goods aboard, and Whippo was warehousing the cargo until the calmest coastal months, in mid-summer, when a voyage would be least risky.
